Zen and the Art of Making a Living: A Practical Guide to Creative Career Design

by Laurence G. Bouldt Penguin 1999

In addition to typical career development material, this book tells you how to start a business, work freelance, establish a nonprofit corporation, manage multiple careers.

Vein of Gold: A Journey To Your Creative Soul

by Julia Cameron, Putnam 1996

Essays on the creative process and more than 100 tasks that involve the reader in "inner play," leading to growth, renewal, and healing.

Unjobbing: The Adult Liberation Handbook

by Michael Fogler, Free Choice Press, Lexington, Kentucky, 1999

How to reclaim a life in alignment with your values - ideas, resources, and inspiration on how to do what you really want to do and still make ends meet.

The New Careers Center: Resources for Career Direction provides a variety of career development resources, including The Whole Work Catalog. Their web page includes links to different categories of careers; assistance in career planning and development; resume writing, job hunting and interviewing; colleges and alternatives; as well as a variety of videos.

Success Teams is an approach to setting and achieving goals promoted by Barbara Sher, author of Wishcraft and Teamworks, and the subject of the public broadcasting production Creating Your Second Life After 40. Success teams are small groups of friends and associates who help each other achieve their goals.

Here's what you can do to negotiate a flexible work schedule that can help you balance your life.

WorkOptions.com shows how to slow down a hurry-up lifestyle by negotiating flexible work arrangements at your current job. It provides assistance in receiving approval for telecommuting, job sharing, and a part-time or a compressed workweek arrangement.

The effects on workers and community when Kellogg instituted its wildly popular 6-hour day during the Depression.

Running Out of Time: Time Pressure, Overtime, and Overwork

A one-hour PBS documentary on the history of time, work, and leisure from primitive societies to today; solutions to "time famine", including "downshifting",job-sharing, and shortening the work week. Hosted by NPR"s Scott Simon. Available from

No, it's not your imagination. We really are working harder and longer; Juliet Schor (see page 17) documents what has happened to the American way of life. The Overspent American addresses the question, "If people don't like to be overworked, why do they put up with it?" Competitive consumption, debt, ad blitzes all contribute (see roundtable with Schor in YES! #6, Summer 98)

organizing

Unionize at work. Advocate for a living wage. Provide opportunities for society's have-not's - some ways to work together and make it happen.

Want to organize a union at your workplace? The AFL-CIO is a good place to start.

National Jobs for All Coalition advocates meaningful employment for all as a precondition for a fulfilling life. Publishes articles and pamphlets on such subjects as social security, full employment, labor unions, and the under-counting of the unemployed.

You can create a business that works for employees, community, suppliers, and the Earth. And you can avoid, to some degree, getting buffeted about by the stock market and the global economy. Here are some ways to build alternative livelihoods.

Center for Labor and Community Research assists labor, business, and communities in pursuing the "high road" - a participative and productive economy that enhances social justice. (See article on the high road on page 28).

The New Road Map Foundation promotes financial integrity and financial independence as a route to health and social revitalization. Their best-selling book, Your Money or Your Life, coauthored by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, provides a step-by-step guide to getting your household finances in line with your values; many have used it to discover how to free themselves of dependence on a paycheck.

CarSharing.Network is a website on an alternative to owning a car, which is the second largest expense in many household budgets. Car co-op members pay a small membership fee and then only pay when they actually use a car. The website has links to car co-ops in cities throughout the world.

The book unapologetically argues that modern car usage is an example of technology that has been inappropriately applied Ã‘ and that the time has come to reclaim city streets for human activity. The author has established an impressive website that provides resources for those interested in carfree living, and an email newsletter, Carfree Times.

Learn a new trade. Travel the world and make a contribution. Get an education that prepares you for service. Here are some starting points.

Alternatives to the Peace Corps: A Directory of Third World & US Volunteer Opportunitiesedited by Phil Lowenthal, Stephanie Tarnoff, & Lisa David Food First, 1996

This guide includes more than 90 voluntary service organizations providing long- and short-term opportunities to serve and study abroad. It includes practical pointers on how to find or create the best service experience to suit you.

At the Action Without Borders, Inc. website, you can search 20,000 nonprofit and community organizations in 150 countries for volunteer and internship opportunities. YouÃ•ll also find a nonprofit career center, with hundreds of job and internship listings. Also, links to web resources for managing and funding a nonprofit organization. An excellent resource!

The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance supports a new generation of innovators through information and advice on curricula designed to teach creativity, invention, entrepreneurship; intellectual property; and technology resources. (See article on eco-entrepreneurs on page 29.)

Making a Difference: College & Graduate Guide, and Making a Difference: Scholarships for a Better Worldby Miriam Weinstein, New Society Publishers, 2000

Helps you find college environmental programs, service learning institutions, and alternative courses within traditional universities. The companion guide provides information on scholarships for students interested in education for careers working for a better world. It also describes awards and fellowships for people (not necessarily students) doing meaningful work in the nonacademic world.

in-home businesses

A home-based business can save start-up costs, keep you close to family, reduce your commute, and give you the flexibility to try something new.

American Association of Home-Based Businesses provides a variety of resources, including newsletters, tip sheets, forums, chats, information on how to operate your home-based business efficiently and effectively, and the latest information on federal legislation that could affect your business.

One way to get free of the world of meaningless jobs is to do more outside the for-profit economy. Here are some resources for starting a not-for-profit company, supporting local farmers and artisans, and bartering.

EF Schumacher Society applies the values of human-scale communities and respect for the natural environment to economic issues. The society helped to initiate an innovative local micro-lending program called SHARE; members authorize their local bank to use the funds in their savings accounts as collateral for loans to people who own or want to start local sustainable businesses. This organization is also a wealth of information on local money systems, community land trusts, and other sustainable local economic innovations.

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Ithaca Hours is one of the best-known local currency groups. The community printed its own currency as a way to build community and keep resources flowing locally. The group sells a Hometown Money Starter Kit ($25) and a video about Ithaca Hours ($15).